The present invention relates to a photopolymerization reactor for dental use in order to polymerize and cure photopolymerizable (or photocurable) resins used for patterning material such as a clasp, a bar, an inlay, a hard resin for facing crown in the field of a dental artificer, more particularly to a photopolymerization reactor for dental use wherein the improvements lie in a cooling mechanism.
Further, the present invention relates to a small-sized light irradiation for dental use which is used for curing composite resin or curing the inlay within the mouth.
Recently, when a clasp, a bar, a pattern for crown-bridge occlusion plane or the like is made, there is a tendency of using a photopolymerizable resin material instead of wax. Before polymerizing, the photopolymerizable material having plasticity is formed to have a predetermined shape, then polymerized and cured by irradiating it using visible or ultraviolet lights. Thus a light source emitting visible or ultraviolet lights, such as a halogen lamp is used. The conventional photopolymerization reactor using such a lamp is available. The halogen lamp is suitable for emitting light or ultraviolet rays as a photopolymerization reactor. However, infrared lights are emitted excessively, hence, there arises such a problem that the lamp and a formed article made of photopolymerizable resin are heated to an abnormally high temperature.
Particularly, when the formed article is heated to an abnormally high temperature, there arises such problems that the formed article is deformed before polymerization, a gas bubble is generated by boiling the liquid contained in the resin, such as a monomer. When the pre-attaching crown is formed, lights irradiated after the metal formed article is covered with photopolymerizable resin. The metal part is heated to a high temperature. Accordingly, when the following step is performed, it takes too much time to cool it after taking it out by using forceps. It is very inefficient work. Further, there is some probability of generating a strain in the boundary between the metal part and the resin part due to a heat expansion of the metal part.
Particularly, when the crown-bridge is formed, the occlusion plane of teeth to be supported are formed by means of photopolymerizable resin and cured, then the side faces of the teeth model are covered with wax so as to be shaped. Therefore, the occlusion plane of a pontic part is formed and cured by means of photopolymerizable resin. On using wax, there arises a problem wherein temperature rises due to light irradiation so as to melt and deform the wax.
As is often the case with the conventional device, air within the device is formed by using an exhaust fan so as to create an air flow in the light irradiation chamber. Thereby, the formed article is cooled. Such a conventional construction performe low coming efficiency since some air flows within the light irradiation chamber and into contact with the formed article. According to such a construction, abnormally heating the formed article cannot be prevented.
The present invention is made to resolve the above-mentioned problems, and the object of the present invention is to provide a construction to make it possible to maximize the cooling effect of the formed article.
In dental curing, it is known that a method for curing the photopolymerizing resin, such as composite resins, which is charged in the dental caries, by using irradiation. In such a curing, a small-sized light irradiator has hitherto been used, and known (for example Japanese Examined Utility Model Publication No. 36491/ 1990).
In many cases, a halogen lamp is used as a light source of the light irradiator. The halogen lamp outputs visible light, the amount of which is too much to be suitable for the light source of the light irradiation. However, infrared lights are excessively emitted so as to heat the lamps and neighborhood thereof too much. Conventionally, a filter for the infrared lights is disposed in the side of the light source and an exhaust fan is disposed in the back side of the light source so that the lamp and the whole device are cooled using the air cooling method. However, such a construction is insufficient for cooling. Therefore, such a halogen lamp to perform practically a cooling effect at low power can be used. It is impossible to cure an inlay in the mouth by photopolymerizing. Further, lights emitted from the halogen lamp includes ultraviolet rays so that there arises a problem of suffering due to direct irradiation to the structure of the mouth.
Accordingly, the present invention is made in view of the above circumstances. The present invention realizes a small-sized light irradiator which has a large output to polymerize and cure the conventional composit and the inlay.